The Property Addict / Architecture & Design

Inside Karlie Kloss' NYC "Koding" office

The Property Addict / Architecture & Design

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The 25-year-old model and entrepreneur is encouraging young women to break into tech"â?and has a chic new office to do it from.
Karlie Kloss took her very first coding class three years ago. In 2014, the now-25-year-old model had a short break before fashion week and decided to attend a boot camp at New York City's Flatiron School. It was meant to serve as a challenge for Kloss"â?not to inspire a new career.
Fast-forward to the present day: Kode With Klossy is Kloss's burgeoning charitable organization, which hosts coding summer camps for girls, awards career scholarships to young female developers, and creates a community for the role of women in tech. Now in its second year, the program has expanded from three to 15 coding camps in 10 different cities, and, perhaps equally as exciting for any young start-up, moved into its first official office.
With a former Victoria's Secret Angel model for a founder (one who has graced more than 30 Vogue covers and walked 64 fashion shows in one season, no less), Kode With Klossy was going to need a little something more than the bare white walls and standard-supply furniture most tech start-ups are forced to endure in their first offices. So Kloss reached out to Homepolish and Lulu & Georgia, which partnered the model with interior designer Tina Rich. "My goal in designing this office was to create a clean, modern space that had its own personality," explains Kloss. "Since I'll be hosting my team, business partners, friends, and family in the office, it was important for the space to feel comfortable and chic, and flow from room to room."
Despite Kloss's jam-packed work and travel schedule, she didn't just hire the designer and walk away. She spent time culling resources to nail down the look she wanted and took regular weekly meetings in the Klossy offices with Rich, highlighting particular aspects of spaces she admires, from the aesthetics of her pal Emily Weiss's Glossier office to the furniture design in the Soho House in Berlin. "They have this wooden kitchen table that actually inspired me to go for a wooden piece in our conference room," she says. "Pinterest was a great resource for me. I loved researching different modern and open offices. Many of the offices I love have these amazing and intricate light fixtures, so I knew I wanted that to be a focal point of my own space."
With this direction from Kloss, Rich rolled up her sleeves and got to work. The ultimate goal? To create a space that felt more like a home than an office. "I wanted the conference room to feel like a dining room"â?especially since Karlie wanted to be able to host dinner parties"â?and the meeting room to feel like a living space," says Rich. To accomplish this, Rich chose statement-making carpets, chandeliers, and pendant lighting from Lulu & Georgia, and added unique artwork from Uprise Art to each room.
Also high on Kloss's priority list was a quality kitchen. No surprise considering Kloss's now-famous gluten-free, nut-free, and dairy-free cookies, dubbed Klossies. "As an avid baker, it is really important for me to have a functioning kitchen in both my home and office so I can cook and bake for friends, family, and special guests," she explains. According to Rich, the kitchen was the biggest transformation: "It had dark cabinets and wood countertops. We freshened it up with Semihandmade cabinet fronts, brass hardware, and a cement tile on the face of the island. Karlie spends a lot of time in the kitchen making cooking videos! I wanted to make sure we created a kitchen that she would love spending time in and one that was the perfect backdrop for her videos."
To really personalize the space, Kloss introduced antiques and personal items from home. The model calls her personal office a snapshot of her life: "I always keep a pair of sneakers and an extra makeup bag with my Carolina Herrera perfume at the office so I can head to the office before or after workouts. There are photos of my family and friends on my desk, and the drawers are filled with Klossies and healthy snacks that I can enjoy throughout the day. I keep a lot of books and fan mail around the office for inspiration, and even have my Video Music Award moon man as a paperweight!"
Small additions (and subtractions) went a long way toward making the space look"â?and feel"â?completely different. "Initially, I didn't think I would need a dressing room, but with my busy schedule, we ended up installing a curtain in one of the rooms so I could change for different meetings, workouts, and events," explains Kloss. Another switch: Wooden panels in the middle of the office were removed and the walls were painted white to keep the space consistent. "I was surprised how much that little change completely opened up the room," admits Kloss. "What's great about the office is that while each room stands on its own, they all balance each other to create a collaborative, functional space."
By Carson Griffith. Article originally published in Architectural DigestSaveSaveSave

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